As Irish citizens recently voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment and thereby allow legislation for abortion, it earned headlines and worldwide attention during what is being hailed as one of the most important historical events for women in the country today.

As it was, the Eighth Amendment prevented terminations of pregnancies in almost all cases — even those where it was clear a baby would not survive outside the womb, or a woman was pregnant due to rape or incest. That’s because Ireland’s law viewed women and fetuses as having an equal right to life.

The final result was 66.4 percent voting yes to repeal the Eighth Amendment and 33.6 percent casting their votes for no. Notably, the voter turnout for the referendum decision was a record 64.51 percent, suggesting this was not a matter where people thought it was OK not to weigh in with their opinions.

A divisive campaign

Both sides were undoubtedly passionate about the cause, with many people making the brave decision to speak about extremely personal issues ranging from miscarriages to forced intercourse. The race was close during much of the campaign. However, in the later stages, the “yes” side pulled ahead in the polls — perhaps signifying the eventual landslide result.

The pro-abortion rights campaigners — also known as Repealers — became recognizable thanks to their black shirts with “Repeal” across the front in white block letters.

Their campaign messages focused on how legislating for abortion would allow for Ireland to treat women with more compassion by giving them the reproductive care they needed or desired in their home country, instead of making them travel to receive it.

The Repealers also pointed out having the Eighth Amendment in place prevented doctors from making the best decisions about patient care, even at a patient’s request. They could not refer patients to clinics in other countries, which meant women who chose to avail of them were often doing so blindly with no information beforehand.

People in favor of repeal also brought up how nine people travel to the United Kingdom daily and a further three order abortion pills online to take at home in Ireland.

In both cases, getting caught trying to terminate a pregnancy while still in Ireland came with a potential 14-year prison sentence that also extended to doctors who gave their patients more specifics about how to seek abortions.

The anti-abortion campaigners who were against removing the Eighth Amendment from the Irish Constitution were also visible from a distance, thanks to their red-and-pink campaign-branded clothing. They targeted emotions, saying things such as “Abortion stops a beating heart” and “Real compassion doesn’t kill” — the latter a direct rebuttal to the Repealers’ “Yes for Compassion” poster.

“No” campaigners — sometimes called the anti-choice side — also targeted people with disabilities and asserted allowing abortions until up to 12 weeks of pregnancy would have put them at risk of never being born.

Clarification emerged, though, to say an instance that would allow a woman to abort a disabled child would only apply in the case of a fatal fetal abnormality. It is not usually possible to diagnose those within 12 weeks, so the proposed new law will allow terminating those pregnancies until the point of viability for the fetus, which is typically about six months.

The groups involved in the cause

The anti-abortion campaigners split into two distinctive campaigns called Love Both and Save the Eighth, with the former being the slightly less aggressive arm of the two.

They also brought over pro-life Americans who wanted to get involved in a world-changing event — a tactic many people in Ireland viewed as deceptive, since those Americans could only be involved temporarily.

Plus, they took a side on an issue that was arguably unfamiliar to many of them, since there are distinctive differences between Irish and American politics and campaign practices.

The pro-abortion rights side campaigned under a unified umbrella known as Together for Yes. However, there were other groups, such as Amnesty International and Rosa — a United Kingdom-based charity for women’s and girls’ issues — that joined the Repealers and printed materials in support of the cause.

Local politicians also campaigned on both sides of the cause, sometimes in opposition to their party’s stance on the matter.

How a tragic death finally spurred change

The 2012 death of Savita Halappanavar, a dentist living in Ireland who was originally from India, was an event that caused people to finally realize the country’s abortion laws had to change. It was certainly not the only fatality caused by the Eighth Amendment, but it attracted international attention and made other women realize their lives were at stake.

Halappanavar died after contracting septicemia during a miscarriage after being denied an abortion. When she was 17 weeks pregnant, Halappanavar went to the hospital with back pain, where doctors told her she was having a miscarriage. However, medical professionals also told her it would be illegal to terminate the pregnancy while the fetus still had a heartbeat.

She repeatedly requested an abortion, but health care workers denied her, so she had to wait days for the fetus’ heartbeat to stop. By that time, Halappanavar had developed the infection that would ultimately kill her.

Those on the pro-life side argued that Halappanavar died because of the septicemia, not the Eighth Amendment. However, an investigation by Irish health authorities concluded “confusion” over those laws was a contributing factor in the fatality.

While campaigning for the Repeal side, many did so in memory of Savita Halappanavar. They knew change came too late for her, but they could work hard to ensure other women didn’t suffer the same fate.

Repealers unveiled a massive mural in Dublin featuring Halappanavar’s smiling face and the word “Yes” shortly after the vote for repeal went through. People flocked to the site to write messages on sticky notes and attach them to the wall in her memory.

A breakdown of the legal proposals

The proposal is for abortion to be legal in any case up to 12 weeks, but women must undergo a three-day “reflection period” between the time they initially request an abortion and when they receive it. Also, the majority of terminations will happen with abortion pills prescribed by physicians, not surgical abortions.

Abortions after 12 weeks will only be allowed in cases where the mother’s life is seriously at risk, or when the fetus has a condition that prevents its survival after delivery. In either case, two physicians — one being an obstetrician — must certify the fetus has not reached the point of viability. In the former instance, those professionals must confirm a danger exists to the life of the mother as a result of the pregnancy.

What happens next?

Despite the significant margin of loss for the anti-abortion campaigners, they have vowed to oppose the legislation. On a national radio broadcast in Ireland, Bishop Kevin Doran weighed in to say Repeal voters committed sins and should think about going to confession. His comments were understandably controversial.

Health Minister Simon Harris aims to introduce the new legislation before lawmakers go on their summer holidays. Regardless of when it happens, women living in Ireland who find themselves pregnant will soon have autonomy over their bodies at long last — without having to travel somewhere else to seek care.

The women who wrote the first edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” met at a women’s liberation conference in 1969.

They had gathered to discuss the topic of women and their bodies, but it didn’t take them long to realize they knew little about their health, sexuality or reproduction. Their subsequent efforts to find this information were unsuccessful. Even physicians were unwilling to answer their questions on issues ranging from childbirth to birth control.

An inclusive model for feminist activism

The group’s success can be attributed to the model of feminist activism they illustrate in their book.

Based in consciousness-raising, it is a model that prompts women to explore issues in the context of their personal experiences, the experiences of others and the best factual knowledge available to them. As they revised the book, the collective incorporated the voices of more and more women, and they urged their readers to consider the issues being discussed in terms of their own lives.

In early editions of the book, the collective focused on women’s health and reproduction. As they updated and rewrote the book, they expanded their coverage to include body image, agriculture and food businesses, environmental and occupational health, and violence against women, among other topics.

The authors discussed these issues in a feminist political context. And, they explained how they and others responded to the problems they unearthed.

Importantly, though, the collective did not direct their readers to a particular course of action.

Recognizing that women’s experiences differed, they offered readers guidelines for finding other women who shared their concerns. In addition, they offered a series of questions designed to help women determine the actions they might want to take.

In the 1996 edition, for example, they ask their readers to consider: “Are the women most affected centrally involved in efforts to create solutions?” They add: “Will our work give women a sense of power? Will our work help inform the public and motivate it to work for more improvements in women’s health?”

Most significantly, the collective urged readers to seek out and listen to the voices of women from different backgrounds and circumstances. They included such voices in the pages of their book.

Shortly after the close of this year’s International Women’s Day, China’s Twitter-like service Sina Weibo shut down Feminist Voices. With 180,000 followers, the group’s social media account was one of the most important advocacy channels for spreading information about women’s issues in China, but in an instant, it was gone. A few hours later, the private messaging app WeChat also shuttered an account for the group. The official reasons for the closures were vague, simply that the accounts had posted content that violated regulations, but the subtext was clear: the country’s highly-monitored media was trying to silence women’s advocates.

It wasn’t the first time Feminist Voices had been censored. Last year, Weibo issued the group a one-month suspension for posting “inappropriate content”—a move that now appears to have been a warning shot. However, says Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, “this time the removal is more sinister as there is no indication that the account will be restored.” Days after it went dark, images appeared online of a group of masked women holding a symbolic funeral for the death of Feminist Voices. Yet the group’s founder Lu Pin (now based in the US) wrote on Twitter that she viewed the ritual not as a funeral, but as a “fantastic carnival,” signifying a rebirth, and she pledged to “reclaim the account by every legal avenue.”

She began to read articles and books on feminism and watching videos on You Tube and she started to notice just how much violence and discrimination there is against women in Cambodia. Worst of all, she started to notice how women and girl’s who spoke out against it, were being ridiculed and attacked.

‘We are really discouraged from speaking out. People really, really value women’s virginity, and they say that you have to be gentle, modest and shy. You can’t have tattoos and slut shaming is really common. If a woman moves in with her boyfriend before she’s married then they’ll say that she is a slut. Rape victims still get blamed and there’s not enough people speaking out because they are ridiculed when they do.’

I wanted to know what had led her to speak up when there was the very real possibility that she too, could be attacked and criticised.

‘The internet helps me a lot,’ she said. ‘When I go on the internet and see so many people speaking about their experiences of sexual harassment, this gave me the courage to speak up.’

However, in her efforts to speak up she has faced criticism. When preparing for her presentation, she was criticised and told that she shouldn’t be speaking about women’s rights.

She has also been dismissed by her friends.

‘They don’t take it seriously,’ she explained. ’Which is most likely either because these things have not happened to them or because they had lived with it for so long that they think that it is normal.

Founded by 18-year-old Maxine Wint and Natalie Braye and 19-year-old Sophia Byrd and Eva Lewis,Youth for Black Lives has transformed the Black liberation movement in the windy city and beyond. Their first protest, peacefully conducted in July of 2016, shut down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. “It was after the death of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, two black men who had been murdered by the police,” says Wint of the collective’s origins. “I realized I had to use my voice to stand in solidarity with every Black person who was going through such a rough time to cope with the idea that racism is still very prevalent in today’s society. My original plan was to create a sit in or protest for any youth who felt like they needed to get involved or just be around people who were experiencing the same feeling as me, tired and ready for a change.”

'Act of resistance'

According to Wint, her peers’ willingness to take action is what turned her idea into a nationally recognized act of resistance. “I had no intentions of it being such a big thing, but after I posted the flyer on social media that’s just what happened. Peers began to contact me and ask if I needed help and it felt empowering to know that I wasn’t alone,” she says. “After the post I created a group chat with Eva, Sophia and Natalie and we made a list of things that needed to be done in order to execute our plan well.”

Together, the young women mapped out a route for their march and ensured protestors had the resources and legal know-how they would need on-site. Then 1,500 people showed up. “It almost seems like a blur because we organized it just in three days,” Wint remembers. “After that first protest, we thought that a youth organization was something that Chicago needed, so we remained a group.”

Source/ rest: msmagazine.comTess Garcia is a student at the University of Michigan. She is a contributor at Teen Vogue, an intern at V Magazine and Style Editor of the Michigan Daily.